The Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival wrapped up its 2007 Festival today concluding 5 exciting days of screenings and events. The winners for the eight award categories including Rituparno Ghosh and Konkana Sen Sharma were announced at the Awards Ceremony following the red carpet premiere of ‘The Last Lear’ at the Asia Society. Celebrities who walked the red carpet included Mira Nair, Abhay Deol, Konkana Sen Sharma, Salman Rushdie, Madhur Jaffrey, Milind Soman, Pan Nalin, Mylene Jampanoi, Shashi Tharoor, Shonali Bose and Buddhadeb Das Gupta. This year the Festival attracted over 8,000 people that included film-lovers, critics and industry professionals. The MIAAC Film Festival which ran from Nov 7-11 screened 50 films which spotlighted the established and emerging South Asian independent filmmakers.

Key Highlights of MIAAC include:  Festival kicked off on November 7th with the much awaited red-carpet screening of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Saawariya’, the first Indian co-production by Sony Pictures followed by Gala Dinner and Cocktails at Madame Tussauds.  50 films were screened with 12 world premieres, 11 US premieres and 15 New York premieres. The Festival included films from several countries including India, Kuwait, France, United Kingdom, USA and Canada.   A key initiative of this year’s festival was Script Link, a 2 day program designed to foster relationships between the film industry executives and 14 writers of South Asian descent. This first edition of Script Link provided the selected writers the opportunity to interact with potential investors, development executives, producers and agents such as Sony Pictures Classics, Magnolia Pictures and GreenStreet Films in over 200 meetings.    The Festival’s official after parties had huge turnouts where the audience had a chance to mingle with filmmakers and cast members.
 
Following are the seven awards and the winners:   Chandrika Tandon Best Film Award: Manorama Six Feet Under directed by Navdeep Singh. Cash award of $10,000 presented by Salman Rushdie; Indira Mahindra Best Director Award: Rituparno Ghosh for Dosar. Cash award of $10,000 presented by Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Mira Nair; Nationwide Actor Award: Danny Denzongpa for Frozen. Cash award of $10,000 presented by Ambassador Vijay Nambiar and Tariq Khan, Vice President for Market Development and Diversity Nationwide Financial Network;    Dina Kothari Best Actress Award: Konkana Sen Sharma for Dosar. Cash award of $10,000 presented by Madhur Jaffrey; Analog Digital Inc. Best Documentary Award: India Untouched directed by Stalin K. In-kind award worth $2,500 presented by Consul General Neelam Deo; Metropolis Film Lab Best Short Award: Shanu Taxi directed by Vasant Nath. In-kind award worth $2,500 presented by Shashi Tharoor; Verizon People’s Choice Award: Verizon presented the People’s Choice Award to Love Story by Amit Gupta voted as the most popular by the viewers; The Best Film Jury decided to give a special mention and award to Frozen directed by Shivajee Chandrabhushan. The award was presented by Anuradha Mahindra.

In addition to the cash awards Time Warner Cable presented each of the winners Award Certificates for 24 free movies each on BODVOD, the South Asian channel. This was presented by Bhupender Kaul, VP, Business Services, Time Warner Cable.
 
The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to promoting, showcasing and building an awareness of Indian artists in the performing, literary, visual, and folk arts. Its focus is to help artists and art organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists from India to exhibit, perform and produce their work here. The IAAC also supports all the artistic disciplines in classical, fusion, folk, and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India, working cooperatively with individuals and organizations around the United States to broaden collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources, and funding. For further information, please visit www.iaac.us
 
The $6 billion Mahindra Group is among the top 10 industrial houses in India. Mahindra & Mahindra is the only Indian company among the top four tractor manufacturers in the world and is the market leader in multi-utility vehicles in India. The Group has a leading presence in key sectors of the Indian economy, including trade and financial services (Mahindra Intertrade, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd.), automotive components, information technology & telecom (Tech Mahindra, Bristlecone), and infrastructure development (Mahindra GESCO, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd., Mahindra World City). The Group employs over 50,000 people and has several state-of-the-art facilities in India and overseas. The Mahindra Group has ambitious global aspirations and has a presence in five continents. Forbes has ranked the Mahindra Group in its Top 200 list of the World’s Most Reputable Companies and in the Top 10 list of Most Reputable Indian companies.  For further information, please visit www.mahindra.com

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